


As the world falls down

by Elisexyz



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Episode: s03e07 Dark Hollow, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-03 19:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17289800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: Emma has magic, that much is true, but she barely knows how to light a candle,howexactly is she supposed to magically sew a wound back together on the first tryandwithout causing any more damage?(Or Neal is apparently a fan of near-death experiences, Emma and Hook worry and bicker in equal measure, and poor Emma needs to catch a break.)





	As the world falls down

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fill for the "Hiding An Injury" prompt [on my Bad Things Happen Bingo card on Tumblr](http://heytheredeann.tumblr.com/post/181930204269/hiding-an-injury-fill-for-the-bad-things-happen).  
>  ...Well, I have written a lot of Christmas fluff, I was bound to go back to my usual hurt/comfort sooner or later LOL. I want to finish this bingo before I die, you know.

“Hey, Emma,” Neal catches her attention, reaching for her arm to stop her. She was kind of expecting it, after the earful she gave them, but she swears, if he wants to argue— “Take this,” he says, though, placing the coconut in her hands with a weird expression on his face.

“Why?” she frowns. Does it make a difference who’s carrying it? And he’s the one who knows what to do with it anyway.

“Don’t wanna drop it,” he mutters, then he reaches for the tree next to him as if to lean on it, his knees buckle, and next thing she knows he’s on the ground and she has almost dropped the coconut trying to reflexively catch him.

“Neal!” she calls, quickly dropping on her knees to see what the hell has gotten into him, while Hook promptly runs back towards them and joins her. “Neal, what the hell?”

He’s kinda looking like shit, his face twisted in a pained grimace and looking paler than normal. Was he that pale before? There isn’t the best lighting, it’s possible that she didn’t notice. He’s reaching for his chest, and Emma’s first thought is something along the lines of _Tell me you are not having a heart attack here of all places_ , because about 90% of her medical knowledge comes from TV and she doesn’t even know what the hell she’s supposed to do besides maybe CPR and—

“Is that _blood_?!” she asks, her tone edging pretty evidently towards hysterics. She quickly removes his hand, her brain only then registering that he’s clutching the right side of his chest and that that’s where he was shot.

It feels like a lifetime ago, but it _isn’t_ , and he reasonably shouldn’t be _standing_ right now, let alone running around organizing escapes from hellish islands and helping in a rescue mission.

He said he was fine and she sort of assumed that he had been magically cured, he said he met Aurora and Mulan and that they helped—

There’s a bandage under his shirt, and it’s _soaked_ in blood. That’s just great. Just great.

“I thought you said you were okay!” she accuses, and maybe she shouldn’t be yelling at the dying man, but he should have _said_ something.

“I _was_ ,” he protests, and she doesn’t like how he keeps blinking as in an attempt at clearing his vision. He looks dazed, that’s not good. She needs something to press on that wound.

“You _aren’t_ ,” she hisses, angrily. “You should have _said_ something.”

“Thought it was fine.”

“You thought _wrong_!”

She hears a ripping sound, then Hook offers her some piece of clothing that he probably took from one out of the ridiculously high number of layers he wears. She offers a brief nod as a thank you and she gives him the coconut, so that she has her hands free, then she turns back towards Neal and she takes a sharp breath.

“This will hurt,” she warns. He nods briefly, as if to tell her to go ahead, and when she presses he only mutters a couple of curses between gritted teeth. She isn’t sure if she’s more overwhelmed by sympathy or by the urge to highlight that he wouldn’t be in this situation _if he had said something_. “Sorry,” she ends up saying, curtly.

“Were you just waiting to die on us or what?!” Hook intervenes instead, because apparently _he_ is more pissed than anything else. She can’t say that she blames him.

Neal shoots him an annoyed look. “It should’ve been fine by now.”

“Well, why _isn’t_ it?!” Hook hisses. Emma contemplates sending him to get help, but help from _whom_? It’s not like there are any hospitals in damn Neverland.

Neal shrugs, which turns out to be a bad idea, judging by his wince. “Don’t know—” he finally rasps out. “Maybe the drugs did something, no idea.”

“ _Drugs_?” Emma echoes, raising her eyebrows.

“Pan,” Neal offers, tiredly, with a shrug that once again he comes to immediately regret.

“Stop _shrugging_ ,” she reprimands.

There’s way too much blood, that isn’t _good_. It’s almost like a fresh wound, what is she supposed to _do_ with that? Putting pressure is no permanent fix, and her knowledge kinda stops there. She needs something better, and _fast_.

God, their situation was bad enough without this, she swears, if he tries to die on her—

 _I was hoping you were dead_.

Neverland thrives on belief, and it’s all tied to magic. For a second, she freezes: could she have caused this? It doesn’t make much sense, but—but he said it was supposed to be healed, yet it isn’t, so maybe—

She swallows, trying to take a grip as her stomach suddenly twists on itself and she has to force her lungs to breathe some air in.

“Hang in there, alright?” she says, quickly, trying to keep her tone even instead of horrified or worried, because he needs her to be calm right now – she’s the furthest from calm that she can be, but hopefully she can pretend. “Don’t you dare die on me, or I’ll be pissed, alright?”

 _I take it back, I take it back, I take it back_ —

“Still kicking,” Neal assures, offering a small smile that has no place in a situation like this.

“Well?” Hook intervenes, catching her attention. “Swan, you’ve got magic, right? _Do_ something!”

“It’s not that _easy_ ,” she replies, defensively. “I barely know how to light a candle, I don’t know if—”

“Bullshit, you are powerful, I saw it, just _do_ something!” he insists, and the anger in his tone makes hers flare up as well.

“I have no experience with this!” she yells. “What if I make it _worse_?! I’ve never done anything this complicated before!”

If only Regina hadn’t taken off on her own they could send Hook to get her, and she could _fix_ this— she’d definitely know how to do it, whereas Emma needed too long to even light that stupid coconut and that wasn’t even _that_ complicated, we are talking about piercing a _wound_ back together here.

“Then try _not_ to make it worse!” Hook bursts out, very unhelpfully.

“ _Guys_ ,” Neal growls, just as Emma is opening her mouth to answer – likely to insult him.

If Neal is being the adult there, they have a problem. She needs to get her shit together, and fast.

She glances back at Hook to glare at him, then she moves her attention back to Neal. “Okay,” she says, taking a deep breath. The piece of clothing that Hook offered is already dripping blood, and she moves it slightly, to check how bad it is— honestly, she can hardly make it worse. It’s just that there’s a difference between watching him bleed out and killing him with her magic. “I—I’ve never done this,” she warns, looking at Neal as if asking for permission, hoping that he _understands_ that she really wants to save him, but she has no idea what she’s doing there and she’s terrified of not managing it.

“It’s okay, try,” he nods, offering a weak smile that she supposed would be more reassuring if he didn’t look half dead already. “If you want?” he adds, the idiot.

“Swan,” Hook prompts, looking more than a little tense.

She glances at him, swallowing heavily as she nods. If there was ever a time to pray, this is probably it.

She hesitates before stopping with the pressure, and she tries not to pay too much attention to all the blood that she’s allowing to flow out on the mere _hope_ that she’ll manage to do something that she has never even _tried_ to— alright, no. Deep breaths.

She closes her eyes, and the only thing that she can think of doing is trying to _will_ her hands into—into _what_? She doesn’t even _know_ what she’s supposed to be doing, she just knows that he needs to stop bleeding, but how does that _work_? Why couldn’t she be a doctor or something, at least she’d have more useful thoughts than ‘Please, just cure everything and save him’.

She keeps trying to will herself into doing it, and yet the magic just seems to be slipping away from her fingers, and this is so stupid and unfair, it’s like they are hanging over that stupid portal all over again and she’s trying so _hard_ to get him to stay and yet he just slips away, and she can yell and cry and yet he won’t _stay_ , and she doesn’t think she can do this again, why the hell can’t she just _keep_ him, for _once_ —

“Emma.”

She blinks, and finds Neal staring at her, looking— definitely better than he did a minute ago.

She sucks in a breath, her eyes falling on his chest, where there’s still an insane amount of blood, but no more wound. She reaches for the spot where the hole used to be, and nothing, it’s clean. Healed. Her fingers touch bare skin and her eyes widen.

“You did it,” he grins. “Thank you.”

She lets out a small laugh, half-way between disbelief and relief, pulling him into a hug out of sheer enthusiasm. She _did_ it, she saved him, everything worked out and he’s _fine_ —

“I’m getting blood all over you,” he points out, his voice a little hoarse, although he’s embracing her back.

“Don’t care,” she replies, taking a deep breath and trying to push the adrenaline down before her heart jumps out of her throat. She can’t believe she did it.

When they pull back, Hook reaches for Neal’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze.

“You got me worried there for a second, lad,” he scoffs, giving him a onceover as if to double check that everything is working. Emma gets it: she can hardly stop staring too.

“I’m an hard one to kill,” Neal smiles a little, after a moment of hesitation.

“Is everything alright now?” Emma quickly asks. Even though she seems to have done fine, she would much rather avoid another surprise like that.

He takes a moment to think about it, which is probably good, then he shrugs. “I’m a little dizzy, but that’s about it.”

“Half your weight in blood is on the ground, that’s hardly a surprise,” Hook comments. “Think you can walk back?”

“Probably.”

Emma is the one who helps him up, and in spite of a little swaying in the beginning he seems decently stable on his feet. She gives him a look as if to ask ‘Okay?’, and when he nods she takes a careful step back, letting him stand on his own – just one step, though, nobody needs him to faceplant on the ground and crack his head open too.

“This time it’d be great if you could warn us in time if something is wrong,” she points out, raising her eyebrows.

She knows by the look on his face that he’s well aware that he’ll soon get a proper earful about this. He tries to play it cool by flashing a grin her way, and the whole thing rudely pulls her back to when it was just the two of them and she was low-key convinced that they’d get married and live happily ever after.

“Promise,” he assures.

She sighs, shooting him a look half-way between suspicion and affection, then she glances back at Hook to make sure that he’s ready to follow and they start walking – she doesn’t take her eyes off Neal for more than two seconds throughout the entire walk, and they are standing close enough that their arms brush, but he doesn’t mention it, only flashing her a touched smile very now and then.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including: 
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!


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